To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.

Sunday morning and 80 degrees in Denver. Just lovely. Thought ole Dirt should share a few of his favorite thing.

Part Aaaay: Records, in homemade cases. yummmm

Part Bee: French press & coffee from a local roaster. hot damn.

Part Sea: Artwork by my brother, in our front room:

Part Dee-Dee: Coffee with Mari at picnic table (w/bike)

Part EEEEEEEHHHHHH! : The kegerator in a newly cleaned garage (or, as the british would say, ‘garage’….I guess it’s better out loud….)

Cheers all - have a lovely sunday…….

My biggest fear, is if I let you go, you’ll come and get me in my sleep

‘You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness’

I’ve been reading ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ by Jonathan Safran Foer this week. This fucking book is blowing my mind.

Enjoy the 70th Dirtbag.

With my own hands, when I make love to your memory, it’s not the same

It was hard. The quagmire that was early 90’s rock. What where we to do? Can you blame us? A million young masturbators, all trying in vain to be as pained as Mr. Cobain. So the amazing field of mid-late-80’s alternative (The Cure, The Smiths, REM, U2) quickly turned ‘mainstream’, and the the ‘alternative-cum-mainstream’ became Bush and the like.

But, there were some standouts. Most nights, circa 1993, would find me bopping along to the Soul Coughing, Morphine, or one of the few alternative hold-outs, Billy Bragg.

Mike Doughty is of course now doing the Bonaroo thing, still making good music (and has an interesting blog), but it lacks the freshness of Soul Coughing. Mark Sandman died on stage in France prior to the millennial turn, and Billy Bragg stopped singing about politics long enough to sing about married life (from the man who once sang, ‘marriage is when we admit our parents were right’).

But once, once they were important.

I still confide in you almost every day, even though you’re not around

I’m working in this sort of ‘conference’ space at my brother’s apartment complex. So there’s this massive flat screen TV above my head, and a radio station that just played this fantastically bizarre mix of songs - that one, ‘I don’t know how to save a life’ kind of sappy song that I saw in Scrubs, then some Journey (Faithfully), and now Sexual Healing. Awesome.

I got the interview back from Joe Matt this weekend, and it’s fantastic.  It’s got a bunch of little doodles and what not in it, and in response to ‘did your friendship with Seth and Chester Brown hamper you at all?’ he responded, ‘That’s an absurd question!’ and included this snippet of Seth and Chester:

Which completely cracked my shit up.

Went on a massive hunt up north this weekend in search of quality 78’s. Went to this guy’s house who had about 6,000, and was selling them for $1700. In the original ad, he claimed having, ‘country, country swing, blues, jazz, some big band and dance music.  Really quite a variety I think,’

Unless Dinah F*cking Shore counts as ‘blues’, this was a blatant lie. It was, quite possible the worst collection of records I’ve ever had the misfortune to stumble upon. I was terribly let down by this nimrod.  Out of 6,000 records, I found 20 that I was mildly interested in (and that was only because they seemed vaguely interesting). I offered him $20 for the 20 records, and he went through this whole rigmarole about not wanting to break up the collection, not wanting to let me cherry pick, etc. So I said, ‘ok that’s fine, I’ll just go’. ‘No, I’m sure we can work something out….’

So then he picks two records, and says,

‘I think these are valuable, so $20 for those two, and $3 a piece for the rest - I couldn’t break up the collection and not get at least $3 for each record.

‘Fine, I’ll take one of the two high dollar ones for $10, and then these 8 for $3.’

‘Well, I was sort of thinking that one would be $15, and other $5′

‘OK, FINE! I’ll take this one for $15, and these eight for $3 each - can you take a check?’

‘Oh, well, I prefer cash’……

This goes on for a while, and we decide to do $20 in cash, and $20 in a check (because a $20 check is a LOT safer than a $40 one), and he has the fucking gall to say,

‘Well, if you want those others, I could let them go for $2 a piece, I guess’

I was so pissed! Five minutes earlier, he was giving me endless shit about not breaking up the collection, can’t let them go for under $3. Ugggghhhh

Also, this nimrod, kept pressuring us the whole time to buy the lot, going so far as to point out how much his wife’s cancer medicine costs each month. All in all a shameful display of salesmanship at it’s worst. The only thing that made the whole experience worthwhile was Luke and I spending the entire hour drive home making fun of the guy, and laughing that we was, in the end, stuck with 6,000 Guy Lombardo 78’s.

It’s only a stab in a wet paper bag

Got back from Los Angeles yesterday with sleep very much on my mind. Was a good trip - successfully navigated public transit between Koreatown and Westwood, which was nice. Here’s a picture of LAX I took at about 3am Thursday morning. I really like it. My niece described it as ‘the one that looks like it’s on fire,’ which I thought was cool.

I also got to watch an episode of Dragnet on my fancy new ipod video. That show fucking rulz.

Also, I’ve been meaning to put up the screen I did of the sled

I’m pretty sure the one on the bottom left was the one I sent to Vonnegut, but I can’t be sure. It was a small run of 10, and while it didn’t come out as I had hoped, I still liked it quite a bit.

This weekend, Dirt’s off to the suburbs to look at a collection of over 6,000 78rpm records which have been in storage since the early 60’s when a record store shut down. Oh, the treasures I may find. Have a great weekend.

He’s up in heaven now.

William Saroyan said, as a prelude to his play, ‘The Time of Your Life’,

In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

When I was in sixth grade, about 11 or 12 years old, I went into the school library looking for books on the Holocaust as most 11-12 year olds do.

I had read most of the books in there, except for one I’d never heard of - Slaughterhouse-5. I signed it out, and was a little confused, but quickly got into it. My old brother saw me reading it and said, ‘If you’re reading Vonnegut in 6th grade, you’re going to do well in life’. He was right - I was hooked.

Recently, I sent Kurt a package with a set of interview questions, and a signed print I had done of the Radio Flyer sled. I hope he liked them. I don’t think I’ll be getting the interview completed. That’s all right though.

Speaking at the Humanist Association’s eulogy for Isaac Asimov, Kurt said, ‘He’s up in heaven now,’ which cracked them all up, since they don’t believe in heaven.

All of the coverage of his death has been a little depressing - ‘black humor’, ‘grisly humor’, ‘dour’, etc. I don’t think any of these things are true. His son, Mark, famously said, ‘We’re here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is,’ a quote often repeated by him. Similarly, he quoted his uncle’s common refrain, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’ His belief in the extended family and in people in general gave me much hope over the years. I never read him as a sardonic, bitter old man, as many have suggested. More I’ve looked at him as our society’s conscience.

In recent years, I’ve developed great anxiety around flying. Every time I fly, I bring one Vonnegut book or another to help calm me down. And it’s worked. I’m no longer anxious to fly, but I still bring his books with me.

I can’t begin to describe his impact, not just on me but on the world. I can think of only two ways to thank him. Being nice to people, even if I don’t know them, and creating things to put out into the world.

Kurt used to say that Laurel and Hardy were two American saints. I think we’d all agree, he could be added to their ranks - but in his honor, I leave off with the great duo: